Category: Health

{A man’s sperm is an important part of him, and if the sperm is negatively affected, fertility would become difficult.}

Doctors and medical experts have warned that these six things are a must if you want healthy sperm:

{{1. Work out }}

Harvard researchers found that men who worked hard the most had a 33% sperm count than men who exercised the least. This is because exercising helps burn fat and boost testosterone.

{{2. Maintain a healthy weight }}

Being overweight or obese can negatively affect your sperm health. Another important reason to visit the gym.

{{3. Avoid excessive alcohol intake }}

Health experts have warned that excess alcohol consumption can have adverse effect on your sperm health. Excess alcohol intake can affect your liver function, testosterone, libido and sperm in diverse ways.

{{4. Eat healthy }}

The quality of your diet can also have a good impact on your sperm quality. Foods like vegetables and whole grains and foods rich in proteins are good for your sperm. Foods rich in lycopene like tomatoes are also good for your sperm quality. Whereas junk foods have detrimental effect on your sperm quality.

{{5.Beware of your mobile phone }}

In a Cleveland clinic study, men who used their phones more had decreased sperm mobility than men who didn’t use it that much. Be wary of putting your phones in your front pocket.

{{6.Reduce stress level }}

Stress is a sperm killer; so you must try to reduce your stress level and observe more rest. Stress can lead to erectile dysfunction, which will make it harder for reproduction to occur.

Want better sperm? Then these tips are for you.

Source:Elcrema

{New studies show that salty food diminishes thirst while increasing hunger, due to a higher need for energy}

We’ve all heard it: eating salty foods makes you thirstier. But what sounds like good nutritional advice turns out to be an old-wives’ tale. In a study carried out during a simulated mission to Mars, an international group of scientists has found exactly the opposite to be true. “Cosmonauts” who ate more salt retained more water, weren’t as thirsty, and needed more energy.

For some reason, no one had ever carried out a long-term study to determine the relationship between the amount of salt in a person’s diet and his drinking habits. Scientists have known that increasing a person’s salt intake stimulates the production of more urine — it has simply been assumed that the extra fluid comes from drinking. Not so fast! say researchers from the German Aerospace Center (DLR), the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC), Vanderbilt University and colleagues around the world. Recently they took advantage of a simulated mission to Mars to put the old adage to the test. Their conclusions appear in two papers in the current issue of The Journal of Clinical Investigation.

What does salt have to do with Mars? Nothing, really, except that on a long space voyage conserving every drop of water might be crucial. A connection between salt intake and drinking could affect your calculations — you wouldn’t want an interplanetary traveler to die because he liked an occasional pinch of salt on his food. The real interest in the simulation, however, was that it provided an environment in which every aspect of a person’s nutrition, water consumption, and salt intake could be controlled and measured.

The studies were carried out by Natalia Rakova (MD, PhD) of the Charité and MDC and her colleagues. The subjects were two groups of 10 male volunteers sealed into a mock spaceship for two simulated flights to Mars. The first group was examined for 105 days; the second over 205 days. They had identical diets except that over periods lasting several weeks, they were given three different levels of salt in their food.

The results confirmed that eating more salt led to a higher salt content in urine — no surprise there. Nor was there any surprise in a correlation between amounts of salt and overall quantity of urine. But the increase wasn’t due to more drinking — in fact, a salty diet caused the subjects to drink less. Salt was triggering a mechanism to conserve water in the kidneys.

Before the study, the prevailing hypothesis had been that the charged sodium and chloride ions in salt grabbed onto water molecules and dragged them into the urine. The new results showed something different: salt stayed in the urine, while water moved back into the kidney and body. This was completely puzzling to Prof. Jens Titze, MD of the University of Erlangen and Vanderbilt University Medical Center and his colleagues. “What alternative driving force could make water move back?” Titze asked.

Experiments in mice hinted that urea might be involved. This substance is formed in muscles and the liver as a way of shedding nitrogen. In mice, urea was accumulating in the kidney, where it counteracts the water-drawing force of sodium and chloride. But synthesizing urea takes a lot of energy, which explains why mice on a high-salt diet were eating more. Higher salt didn’t increase their thirst, but it did make them hungrier. Also the human “cosmonauts” receiving a salty diet complained about being hungry.

The project revises scientists’ view of the function of urea in our bodies. “It’s not solely a waste product, as has been assumed,” Prof. Friedrich C. Luft, MD of the Charité and MDC says. “Instead, it turns out to be a very important osmolyte — a compound that binds to water and helps transport it. Its function is to keep water in when our bodies get rid of salt. Nature has apparently found a way to conserve water that would otherwise be carried away into the urine by salt.”

The new findings change the way scientists have thought about the process by which the body achieves water homeostasis — maintaining a proper amount and balance. That must happen whether a body is being sent to Mars or not. “We now have to see this process as a concerted activity of the liver, muscle and kidney,” says Jens Titze.

“While we didn’t directly address blood pressure and other aspects of the cardiovascular system, it’s also clear that their functions are tightly connected to water homeostasis and energy metabolism.”

Source:Science Daily

{A new study from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai provides important insights into how the body regulates its production of heat, a process known as thermogenesis that is currently intensely studied as a target of diabetes and obesity treatment in humans.}

While researchers had previously hypothesized that macrophages, a class of white blood cells, played a major role in thermogenesis, the new study suggests that the main driver of thermogenesis is the sympathetic nervous system, which is chiefly controlled by the brain. The results were published online in Nature Medicine.

The Mount Sinai research team led by Christoph Buettner, MD, PhD, senior author of the study and Professor of Medicine (Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Bone Disease) at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, focused on catecholamines, hormones released by the sympathetic nervous system to activate brown fat tissue. Brown adipose tissue is a type of fat tissue that burns energy to produce heat and keep us warm. Catecholamines can also convert white fat tissue, the more familiar kind of fat tissue that stores lipids, into a tissue that resembles brown fat. The researchers tested whether macrophages could provide an alternative source of catecholamines, as had been proposed in recent years.

“Thermogenesis is a metabolic process that receives a lot of interest as a target of drugs that allow you to burn energy and hence reduce obesity and improve diabetes. It turns out that macrophages are not that important, as they are unable to make catecholamines, but clearly the brain through the sympathetic nervous system is,” says Dr. Buettner. “Therefore, it is very important to study the role of the brain and the sympathetic nervous system when it comes to understanding metabolism.”

The ability to generate heat is critical for the survival of warm-blooded animals, including humans, as it prevents death by hypothermia. “This evolutionary pressure shaped the biology of humans and that of other warm-blooded animals, and may in part explain why humans are susceptible to developing diabetes in the environment in which we live,” says Dr. Buettner.

According to Dr. Buettner, while a lot of effort has been invested in targeting the immune system to cure diabetes and insulin resistance, as of yet there are no anti-inflammatory drugs that have been shown to work well in humans with metabolic disease. “Our study suggests that perhaps the key to combating the devastating effects of diabetes and obesity in humans is to restore the control of thermogenesis and metabolism by the brain and the autonomic nervous system,” says Dr. Buettner.

Source:Science Daily

{Health is wealth. You only live long enough as you want to, and by that, I mean, how much effort you put into living healthy. Some of the habits we have are responsible for the health issues we suffer. I have a number of them I think must be avoided for a longer, healthier life.}

{{Not drinking enough water }}

Dehуdrаtіоn, unknown to many, саn саusе fаtіguе, drу mоuth, соnstіраtіоn аnd mооd swіngs. Оn thе оthеr hаnd, drіnkіng wаtеr wіll hеlр уоu соntrоl уоur сrаvіngs аnd арреtіtе, and as а rеsult, уоu wіll bе аblе tо mаіntаіn a healthy wеіght. I understand that drinking water can be tiring, but it’s a healthy habit to imbibe. Health experts have suggested at least, 8 glasses of water a day in order to stay in good working condition as a human being. If you have to, add strawberry or lemon to make your water taste better and appealing enough for drinking.

{{Skipping meals }}

First of all, skipping meals will leave you tired and unable to do anything, and it has other terrible health effects on your body, like ulcer for example. Then again, you can gain unnecessary weight by skipping meals, because it slows down your metabolism, and as а rеsult, уоu wіll tеnd tо оvеr-еаt, gаіn wеіght аnd gеt а lоt оf sеrіоus dіsеаsеs. So it’s important to eat promptly.

{{Not eating sufficient protein }}

When there’s insufficient protein in your system, your body finds it almost impossible to maintain its blood sugar levels. Eating enough of it provides you with enough calories to make that responsibility possible. Foods like Buckwheat, eggs, chia, and beans are rich in protein.

{{Eating insufficient fat }}

There’s healthy fat and there’s unhealthy fat. Too much fat is obviously unhealthy and bad for your living, but that doesn’t make eating an insufficient quantity healthy. You lack enough energy when you have insufficient fat in your body. You should take in at least, one to two tablespoons of fat daily. Avocados are an example of foods with healthy fat.

{{Not eating enough carbohydrate }}

Fаtіguе, hеаdасhеs, соnstіраtіоn, mооd swіngs аnd nаusеа, overeating, are some of the negatives of not eating enough carbohydrates. Carbohydrates give you enough energy to carry out your daily activities, but be careful not to eat too much of them as that too isn’t healthy.

Source:Elcrema

{Excess sugar in the body is dangerous and harmful to your health. The commonest way of knowing the sugar level in your system is by visiting a doctor for proper check up, but other than that, the following signs can also suggest that your sugar level is high.}

{{You suffer too much ACNE }}

There’s a relationship between high sugar levels in the body and acne. The higher the amount of sugar you take into your system, the more likely it is that you’ll have acne attacks.

{{Cavities }}

Cavities are more often than not, a glaring sign of a sweet tooth. Cavities are painful, but avoidable too. Brush very well after each meal to keep your teeth clean, and keep cavities away.

{{High blood pressure }}

You may not have known this, but there’s a serious link between high blood pressure and excess sugar. Regular consumption of a high sugar diet can push your blood pressure to abnormal levels. To be safe, it’s important you cut down on the sugar.

{{Weight gain }}

Foods that are high in sugar never really leave you filled (which makes you eat more) and do not compensate for total energy, that is, they do not displace other foods, so they add to your total calorie intake, which means weight gain.

{{It messes with your taste buds }}

Eating a lot of sugar can mess with your taste buds over time. The more you consume, the more it increases your taste buds’ tolerance for sugar, and as a result, you’ll need to eat even more and more sugar to satisfy craving. This is not a good thing, and you must cut down to restore your taste buds to its normal state.

In all, try as much as you can to cut down on your sugar intake, it’s dangerous and unhealthy, and can be fatal.

Source:Elcrema

{In a research article published in PLOS Medicine, Huaidong Du of the University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom and colleagues report that greater consumption of fresh fruit was associated with a lower incidence of diabetes, as well as reduced occurrence of complications in people with diabetes, in a Chinese population.}

Although the health benefits of diets including fresh fruit and vegetables are well established, the sugar content of fruit has led to uncertainty about associated risks of diabetes and of vascular complications of the disease. Du and colleagues studied nearly 500,000 people participating in the China Kadoorie Biobank over about 7 years of follow-up, documenting new cases of diabetes and recording the occurrence of vascular disease and death in people with pre-existing diabetes.

The researchers found that people who reported elevated consumption of fresh fruit had a lower associated risk of developing diabetes in comparison with other participants (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR] 0.88, 95% CI 0.83-0.93), which corresponds to an estimated 0.2% reduction in the absolute risk of diabetes over 5 years. In people with diabetes, higher consumption of fresh fruit was associated with a lower risk of mortality (aHR 0.83, 95% CI 0.74-0.93 per 100g fruit/d), corresponding to an absolute decrease in risk of 1.9% at 5 years, and with lower risks of microvascular and macrovascular complications.

In addition to the health benefits of consuming fresh fruit, Du and colleagues emphasize the value of their findings for Asian populations where fruit consumption is commonly restricted in people with diabetes. The main limitation of this observational study is that the effects of fruit consumption can be difficult to distinguish from those of participants’ other dietary and behavioural characteristics.

Source:Science Daily

{One shot with 10 live-attenuated vaccine particles triggered full immune response and completely prevented mice from Zika virus infection}

The first live-attenuated Zika vaccine still in the development stage completely protected mice against the virus after a single vaccination dose, according to new research from The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and Instituto Evandro Chagas at the Ministry of Health in Brazil. The findings are currently available in Nature Medicine.

While a Zika infection typically results in mild or symptom-free infections in healthy adults and children, the risk of microcephaly and other diseases in the developing fetus is an alarming consequence that has created a worldwide health threat. Pregnant women who are infected with the Zika virus but never display any disease symptoms may still give birth to a baby with microcephaly.

An effective vaccine is urgently needed for women of childbearing age and travelers to areas where the virus has been reported. Since Zika virus could also be sexually transmitted, prevention of men from infection through vaccination could also halt Zika transmission and diseases.

Rapid and promising progress has been made toward a Zika vaccine. These developing vaccines have been made from an inactivated version of the Zika virus or subunits of the virus; these vaccine candidates have been shown effective in mice and nonhuman primates.

“We chose to pursue a vaccine made from live virus that has been sufficiently attenuated, or weakened, to be safe, and is able to illicit robust immune response to protect us from Zika virus infection. Such live-attenuated vaccine has the advantage of single-dose immunization, rapid and strong immune response and potentially long-lived protection,” said UTMB’s Pei-Yong Shi, senior author and the I.H. Kempner professor at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. “A successful vaccine requires a fine balance between efficacy and safety — vaccines made from attenuated live viruses generally offer fast and durable immunity, but sometimes with the trade-off of reduced safety, whereas inactivated and subunit viruses often provide enhanced safety but may require several doses initially and periodic boosters. Therefore, a safe live-attenuated vaccine will be ideal in prevention of Zika virus infection, especially in developing countries.”

To create the vaccine, the researchers engineered the Zika virus by deleting one segment of the viral genome. A similar approach has successfully been used to develop a dengue virus vaccine, which is currently in phase three clinical trials.

Shi explained that the data indicate that the vaccine the team is developing has a good balance between safety and efficacy. A single immunization with the vaccine candidate produced strong immune responses and prevented the virus from infecting mice at all.

“Safety is a major hurdle when developing a live-attenuated vaccine. Our Zika vaccine showed promising safety profile in mice when compared with clinically approved live-attenuated vaccines, such as the yellow fever vaccine,” Shi said.

“Vaccines are an important tool for preventing Zika virus transmission and microcephaly,” said Pedro F. C. Vasconcelos, medical virologist and present director of the Evandro Chagas Institute and co-author. “This vaccine, the first live-attenuated vaccine for Zika, will improve the public health efforts to avoid the birth defects and diseases caused by Zika in countries where the virus is commonly found. The initial target of this vaccine is women of childbearing age, their sexual partners and children less than 10 years old.

Source:Science Daily

{Tracking gene expression patterns for 20,000 gene in 1,500 cells revealed a mosaic of activities}

If you get up in the morning feeling energetic and clearheaded, you can thank your liver for manufacturing glucose before breakfast time. Among a host of other vital functions, it also clears our body of toxins and produces most of the carrier proteins in our blood. In a study reported recently in Nature, Weizmann Institute of Science researchers showed that the liver’s amazing multitasking capacity is due at least in part to a clever division of labor among its cells.

Each of the liver’s microscopic, hexagonal lobules consists of onion-like concentric layers. By mapping gene activity in all the cells of a liver lobule, Dr. Shalev Itzkovitz of Weizmann’s Molecular Cell Biology Department and his research team have revealed that these layers each perform different functions. Itzkovitz says: “We’ve found that liver cells can be divided into at least nine different types, each specializing in its own tasks.”

The scientists found, for instance, that the synthesis of glucose, blood-clotting factors and various other materials takes place in the outer layers of the liver lobule. “These layers are rich in the oxygen needed to fuel these costly synthesis processes,” explains Itzkovitz.

The inner layers of the liver lobules revealed themselves to be the sites where toxins and other substances are broken down. The middle layers also proved to have their own functions, rather than serving as mere transition zones: The researchers found, for example, that cells in these layers manufacture the hormone hepcidin, which regulates iron levels in the blood.

The scientists also discovered that certain processes, such as the manufacture of bile, proceed across several different layers, in something like a production line.

These discoveries emerged when the researchers created a spatial atlas of gene expression for all liver cells, the first of its kind for this organ. In collaboration with Prof. Ido Amit of Weizmann’s Immunology Department, they analyzed the genomes of 1,500 individual liver cells, establishing patterns of expression for about 20,000 genes in each cell. In parallel they visualized intact liver tissue, locating individual messenger RNA molecules under a fluorescence microscope, using a method developed by Itzkovitz and his colleagues. Special algorithms then enabled the researchers to establish both the gene expression in each cell and the location of these cells in the liver lobule. They found that more than half of the 7,000 genes expressed in the liver vary in activity from one layer to another, a number that is about ten times greater than previous estimates.

Such an in-depth analysis of gene expression may help clarify the course and origin of common liver disorders, including liver cancer and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, which affects about a fifth of the population in developed countries. In addition the approach developed in the new study may now be applied to map gene expression elsewhere in the body.

Source:Science Daily